Chapter 762: Imperial Ama, Be Careful When Riding Horses

"Lord Ukita! Come with us, quickly!"

These auditory hallucinations just won't stop! Could this be the end of my days?

Ukita Hideie sighed. Though he knew full well it was a hallucination, he couldn't help wanting to see who would play such a cruel joke on him — this was truly too cruel!

One of the Five Great Elders of the Toyotomi house! A rich man who could afford to eat one bowl of white rice and throw away another! But what about now?

For a mouthful of food he had to weave straw mats, and these mats fetched almost no money at all. Back when some old acquaintances were still alive, Ukita Hideie could set aside his pride and ask the shogunate retainers guarding him to send the mats to those acquaintances in exchange for a little white rice.

Though he knew full well such behavior was little better than begging, for the sake of letting his children and grandchildren taste the legendary white rice, he could no longer care about such things.

But now all those old friends and acquaintances were dead, and his mats had become less and less valuable — now even selling them was difficult.

With the mats unsellable, white rice could no longer be had.

"You are—" Ukita Hideie rubbed his eyes. He dared not be certain whether what he saw was real.

Several men in their fifties dressed as samurai were kneeling before him in the small courtyard! And outside the courtyard, there seemed to be even more samurai!

What was going on?

Had the Tokugawa house finally remembered that a root of disaster like himself still existed, and come to eliminate him?

Very well, then — before eliminating him, surely they'd give him a good meal!

Ukita Hideie, who had long since ceased to care about life and death, set down the straw mat in his hands, straightened his back, made an effort to recall, and then spoke in the dignified tone he had used in the days when he sat among the Five Great Elders: "I am Ukita Hideie, adopted son of His Highness the Taikō. You are Tokugawa retainers come to take my life, are you not?"

The men who had come were not Tokugawa retainers, but "Toyotomi loyalists" led by Saiga Fu. After the "Jeju Island Incident," Zhu Cilang had Zheng Zhilong settle these men on an offshore island, and regularly had their stipends converted into food and daily necessities and sent to them.

Zheng Zhilong chose a small island called Bashigo south of Taiwan to settle them. Though they had no worries about food and drink, had gained an island, and even had some natives to rule over, this was not the life they wanted.

But to leave the "House of Zhu" and become ronin again — that they could not bear to do. Though their work was guarding a desolate island, the stipend was hardly low! The highest-paid among them, Saiga Fu, had his stipend raised from 250 koku to 500 koku for his meritorious service in the Jeju Island Incident!

Five hundred koku of white rice a year — where else could one find that?

Just when the Japanese on Bashigo Island were bored out of their minds, Zhu Cilang thought of them again.

This time the assignment was a big one: go to Hachijō Island and bring out Ukita Hideie and his whole family, then board a "Spanish galleon" hired from Macau.

"The Great Elder misunderstands. I am a retainer of the Shimazu house, sent by my lord to invite the Great Elder."

Hearing Saiga Fu's words, old Ukita Hideie felt as though he were in a dream.

The Shimazu house wanted to take him away from Hachijō Island?

Could this be... the overthrow of the shogunate?

No, no, no... it must be an illusion!

Old Ukita Hideie still dared not believe it. All he wanted was a single bowl of white rice! If he went to the Shimazu house, surely he'd be granted at least a few hundred koku of land, wouldn't he?

Wouldn't that mean he could eat a whole bucket of white rice a day?

At that thought, the old man closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then suddenly opened them wide.

Saiga Fu and the others were still there!

This matter did not seem to be a dream!

Still uneasy, the old man asked again: "Are you truly men of the Shimazu house?"

"Hai!" Saiga Fu answered. "Great Elder, come with us quickly — the Spanish ship is at the dock. Let us make haste."

"What? A Spanish ship? They too—"

Saiga Fu naturally would not say more; the more one says, the more mistakes one makes. He merely said: "Great Elder, ask no more! Once you have met the Lord of Shimazu, everything will be clear!"

Ukita Hideie was still somewhat uneasy. "Is this matter truly the doing of the Lord of Shimazu?"

"Of course it is!" Saiga Fu said. "Besides him, who else could make contact with the Spanish in Manila?"

That did seem to be the case. Japan was now in seclusion, with only three openings: Nagasaki, Uraga, and the Ryukyus. Of these, the openings at Nagasaki and Uraga were firmly under shogunate control; only the Ryukyu opening was in the hands of the Shimazu house.

Ukita Hideie finally nodded heavily. "Very well! This old man will go with you!"

With Ukita Hideie's "disappearance" and the evidence of the Shimazu house's "collusion with the Qing" delivered to Edo Castle, a storm that would sweep across the Japanese archipelago had begun to brew.

Meanwhile, within the Great Qing, which had temporarily gained the upper hand in the "Qing-Japanese Fur War," few people cared about the victory report sent from Sakhalin — wasn't it just killing and capturing two or three thousand "little dwarves"? Nothing remarkable. How could it compare to such a great matter as the Mongol Kingdom of India coming to offer tribute?

This was the great unity of the Mongols!

And it would let the Great Qing gain a million taels for nothing — what a fine thing!

So these days Dorgon's illness had half recovered, and he was cheerful all day long. Today he was even happier, because he had received Ajige's memorial reporting that he had already made contact with the army of the Khoshut Khanate escorting the envoy mission of the Mongol Kingdom of India. The mission was of enormous scale, led by a prince of the Mongol Kingdom of India, and carried a great many gifts — the camels carrying the gifts alone numbered over a thousand.

"Empress Dowager, Your Majesty, the time is nearly upon us. Let us get ready and be on our way."

Inside the Palace of Compassion and Tranquility, Dorgon held the memorial just received from Ajige and spoke cheerfully with Bumbutai and the young Shunzhi Emperor.

The young Shunzhi Emperor and the Empress Dowager Bumbutai both had to go along to the grasslands. Shunzhi had to go to the grasslands to play the role of the Mongol Great Khan!

Bumbutai had to play the role of a Mongol empress dowager, while Dorgon was the father of the Great Khan — a Mongol too, of course.

Besides the three of them — Dorgon, Bumbutai, and Shunzhi — several Mongol tribes of the southern desert grasslands also had to send people to the Thousand-Li Pine Forest to join the festivities.

How could the Great Khan of the Great Mongol Nation be without Mongols at his side?

In addition, the Plain Green Banner and the Eight Banners in the capital all had to send their finest troops to the Thousand-Li Pine Forest, to display the Great Mongol Nation's awe-inspiring military might before the envoys of the Mongol Kingdom of India!

These past few years, the Ming had been steadily improving, and the Great Mongol — no, it should be the Great Qing — was also striving to make progress!

If one did not strive, one would die!

So Dorgon dared not be negligent either, and was advancing military reforms while drawing on experience from all sides. The concrete approach was to establish two standing forces: the "Vanguard Battalion" and the "Firearms Battalion."

The so-called "Vanguard Battalion" was a copy of the Solon cavalry — a kind of "dragoon" equipped with firearms, lances, and sabers, wearing no armor, who charged on horseback, dismounted to shoot, and could also fight hand-to-hand with sabers. The warhorses assigned to them were, as far as possible, selected from fine horses of strong build and fast sprinting speed.

The "Firearms Battalion," on the other hand, combined firearms, lances, sword-and-shield men, and artillery together, somewhat resembling the Ming army's method of organization.

However, Dorgon did not concentrate these two new forces — the Vanguard Battalion and the Firearms Battalion — but distributed them under the Palace of Double Splendor (the Regent's residence), the Shengjing General's Office, and the various Angbang Zhangjing offices.

That is to say, Beijing had one Vanguard Battalion and one Firearms Battalion; Shengjing also had one Vanguard Battalion and one Firearms Battalion; and the various Angbang Zhangjing offices outside also had Vanguard Battalions and Firearms Battalions under them. Although all were called Vanguard Battalions and Firearms Battalions, the ones under the jurisdiction of the Palace of Double Splendor, the Shengjing General's Office, and the Heilongjiang Angbang Zhangjing office had the largest numbers (the Heilongjiang Angbang Zhangjing office had no Firearms Battalion, just a 3,000-man Solon cavalry Vanguard Battalion), with the two battalions together totaling around three to four thousand men.

The remaining Angbang Zhangjing offices each had only 1,200 officers and men in their Vanguard Battalions and Firearms Battalions.

This time Dorgon wanted to concentrate as many of the new Vanguard and Firearms Battalion troops as possible, to give the Mongols of the Mongol Kingdom of India a good eyeful.

"Imperial Ama," the frail young Shunzhi said, clearly reluctant to go out, frowning as he asked, "when we go to the Thousand-Li Pine Forest, will we have to ride horses and hunt?"

Dorgon laughed heartily. "Of course we're going to ride and hunt — why else would we go to the Thousand-Li Pine Forest? Your Majesty, you must seize the time to practice, so you don't make a fool of yourself when the day comes."

Shunzhi gave a faint, ambiguous smile. "Imperial Ama, you should also be careful when riding. You have only just recovered from a serious illness!"

(End of Chapter)